Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Our friend Mandy from Eight is Enough needs our help. If you haven't done so already, I encourage you to read her latest post regarding her son Jacob. He has a life-threatening condition in which he struggles to breathe, and she needs our support in spreading the word about his condition and her hope to find another family who may also be suffering from the rare medical condition he faces.

My wish is that you will read her post and possibly share with your readers the same thing that I am sharing here. If you do not have a blog but would still like to help, you can always link to Email or Facebook or any of the other social medias that are found in the boxes below this message. You can also find her directly by logging onto www.MandyEightIsEnough.blogspot.com. My thought is that if we can post about her on our blogs and link to hers, together we will have a greater chance of reaching as many people as possible. As a group, we have a lot of power to help her as well as other families who may be looking for support. I hope you will join forces with me in order to do what we can to help alleviate their pain.

Let's stick together friends - it takes a village to help a child and in blog land - we have one . . .

Sunday, September 26, 2010

This week, Mixed Media Monday offers an open art prompt. In other words, anything goes! With that in mind, I thought I would create another piece in what I suspect will be a series using altered tin and vintage children's images. The first piece, "I Exist" can be found here and was the inspiration for what you see above.

As before, it was created on a piece of vintage tin molding and a cabinet card. I used two small pieces of wood as a shimmy between the photo and the tin so that it would sit straight and be sturdy. The vintage text included reads, "But alone I am."

Thank you for your time: I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with in this week's open prompt . . .

Thursday, September 23, 2010

I am so honored to have been the recipient of two very special awards within the last few weeks. They came at a time when I really needed cheering up (we lost our family dog and then my Grandmother shortly thereafter) and I have been remiss in thanking my friends Leslie and Faerwillow for their thoughtfulness until now. I am truly grateful to you both for your support and kindness!

With these awards, I am meant to share a few things about myself. This made me realize that although I talk a lot about my family (and how they relate to my art), I don't often talk about myself. So, the following are 10 things you may not know about me:

1. I was in every play in High School (yes, I was one of those) and graduated UCI with a BA in Theater.

2. I spent a year in college as an exchange student living abroad in England. I still crave Lemon Curd and Earl Gray.

3. I moved to LA to pursue acting after graduation, but never got passed the head-shot stage. After a year of being a part of the hustle-and-bustle that is the LA "scene," I realized that it was just not for me.

4. So I moved to San Diego and took a position as a makeup artist until I could find a "real job." I loved it so much that I made it my career. Among other positions, I was an Education Director for Nordstrom and taught artistry classes on everything from color theory to makeup for black-and-white photography.

5. In addition to makeup, I also love interior design. Especially nurseries. I have done over a dozen "baby" and "big kid" rooms for my friends (read, not professionally) in the last 10 years.

6. Here's a good one: I am 6 years older than my husband (I know). I didn't realize how old he was when we met (although he would argue that) but in the end I thought, "who cares! It's not as if you're going to marry him . . ."

7. My house is always clean and tidy, as long as you don't count the laundry room or closets.

8. I am a vegetarian. And the rest of my family is not. I cook food on a daily basis that I do not taste or eat.

9. I started using use crystals in my art because I always have them lying around. In addition to being at home, I also make Swarovski crystal encrusted license plate frames (over 550 hand applied to each) and military-inspired "dog tag" necklaces. Hence the blog name, "Twinkle, Twinkle."

10. I look forward to traveling and teaching again - next time, artistry without the makeup. . .

Now, here's the real fun: I am to pass these awards on to you! Although it is difficult to narrow down my blogs of inspiration, this time I am happy to share the following awards with . . .

Sunday, September 19, 2010

This week Mixed Media Monday challenges us to create a piece of art that in some way incorporates buttons. I wasn't sure how I was going to do that as, like most of us, my button collection is rather large and sometimes having too many choices makes it difficult to decide where to start. So I went with the idea of choosing just one rather simple looking button and building a environment around it. Since the first journal page in my wallpaper book featured a Mama Bird, I decided to do the same here. This piece symbolizes the hope to fill our nest again with a cute little button of our own . . .

The journal page above was created with watercolor paper and decorative wallpaper that was distressed and "aged" using watered-down acrylic and brown and white acrylic splatters. I then added a pulled and painted ribbon to ground my little Mr. and Mrs. The nest was made with a more acrylic in addition to bits and pieces of string, ribbon, wire and fabric. The baby button was sewn with hemp and glued onto the nest.

Thank you for looking! I look forward to seeing all the creative displays of buttons this week . . .

Thursday, September 16, 2010

I know, I know. I am so late! But I still wanted to participate in this week's Mixed Media Monday challenge which asks us to try something that we have always wanted to do. Well, I have been wanting to do one of those tiny collage necklaces for the longest time, and when I found the Inkssentials line of Memory Frames and Glass, I knew what I was going to do. . .

The cool thing about the size of the frame (1.5 x 1.5") is that I was able to feature a small cabinet card I recently found that reminds me of my Grandmother Lydia. She must have been about the same age as the girl in the picture, and the little pig charm in combination with the photograph reminded me of one of my favorite childhood stories. It goes like this: When my Grandma was a little girl, her Dad brought home a pig that he won in a poker game. It was the runt of the litter and, not knowing what to do with it, he brought it home and gave to his Daughter. Well, little Lydia loved that pig and treated it like a doll: she made a bed for it to sleep in, had an old stroller that she would take it for walks in and even had it drinking out of a bottle. It was her life. Until one day she came home for dinner and . . . well . . .times were tough back then and her little "baby" had grown large enough to become dinner. No warning from the parents, just, well, a meal. Needless to say, she never ate pork again. And I never forgot that story.

This piece was created using a cabinet card cut to size and enhanced with charcoal (around the embossed decorative edge). I pierced a hole into the bottom of the (cheap, pliable) frame with a craft knife before stringing the pig charm and Swarovski crystal bead with thin wire back into the interior of the frame. I tied a knot and cut it close before placing the frame back into position. When that was complete, I used sandpaper to distress the front and then applied small clear flat-back Swarovski crystals around the edge. Final touches included a casual chain 24" chain that was connected to the charm with a jump ring.

Thank you for looking - I hope to be more on the ball next week when the challenge is "Buttons". . .

Sunday, September 5, 2010

This week's Mixed Media Monday challenge, Warm It Up, gave me the perfect excuse to play with some vintage items I recently found at a yard sale. I choose a bold yellow as my main color and paired it with a piece of vintage music and an image from a 1950's greeting card.

"Golden Girl" was created by first adhering the sheet music to a 5 x 7 canvas panel. The exposed words read, "you grow sweeter as the years go by." To that, I added a carefully cut image of a little girl which was outlined with metallic gold gel pen. The card already had some iridescent glitter on the headband and flowers, so I played up the shine by placing a few orange Swarovski crystals on the roses. Final touches included yellow pom pom trim glued to the bottom and picture hanging wire pulled through punched holes with brads on top. A piece of ripped pink toile fabric was then added the top right for balance.

Thank you for your visit. I'm eager to see what everyone else does with their warm palette. . .

Thursday, September 2, 2010

I recently helped my friend Sherry decorate her office and teacher's lounge for the upcoming year of preschool. She owns and operates the school Kendra is lucky enough to attend, and has been my friend since the days when you matched outfits with your BFF and wore them to the mall . . . .

We spent a few days last week painting (okay, getting our husbands to paint) the walls a neutral grey, stenciling (and if you are really paying attention, yes, I did say that I was going to retire that stencil. But then I saw that rug and, well, I lied), spray painting old desk tops and wicker chairs and shopping for accessories. We wanted a feminine feel, with soft colors and bold accessories. We added cute (Target) owl prints and pillows for the teacher's lounge and pretty little accents and rugs from Home Goods. We attempted to put both rooms together with low cost and high style. I hope it succeeds in bringing a smile to the faces of both big and little people as they enter. . .